Celebrate Galileo’s 450th birthday in 2014 with this video of Namibian nights by Marsel Van Oosten. Find out more about Galileo’s genius in the accompanying article – discover why he was really exiled by the Church- & how his contributions have shaped astronomy.
Who by Fire – a video & a song [Video]
A beautiful Leonard Cohen song “Who by Fire” – is the background music for this “Dance on Camera Festival 2013” video. Watch another incredible Leonard Cohen performance at London in 2009
Meet the skull & crossbones [Article/Documentary]
If you’ve wondered, as I did when I heard about pirates off the coast of Somalia, how come pirates still existed in these times, a new documentary called Stolen Seas by Thymaya Payne, & this article shed light on why they operate, & the complicity of the Western nations that cause them to take up arms.The documentary was shot almost entirely by Somali youth that Payne taught to use a film camera
Edison on ‘light’ sleeping to success [Article]
Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, & that meant the end of the sleep habits of the people of the time. He apparently regarded sleep as a waste of time, & used to brag about not needing more than 4-5 hours of sleep each night. Maria Popova discovers his secret: power naps during the day.
An Excel-lent Debacle: A Microsoft contribution to its ignorant users in the finance world [Article]
Microsoft’s Excel is the glue that sort of holds the world together. Most finance folks know this already, but in case you don’t, here are two recent articles expose the extent of the influence that Excel has in the banking system & how dramatic the results are of reliance on spreadsheet models. The first article is about Excel’s contribution to the London Whale trading debacle, & the second is a comment thread on YCombinatior.
Scott Adams on cheesy complexity [Article]
Decisions that make sense when looked at in insolation make no sense in the complexity that forms an integral part of our lives. Scott Adams is confounded with the decision to charge for paper bags at the local supermarket, and says it is making his life overly complex. An interesting read
The History Of The ❤ [Article]
This blog entry investigates the origins of the symbol for love, the heart. The answer connects the seed of one plant used as a protection against the seed of mankind, in the old city-state of Cyrene 🙂
Love’s labour’s never lost [Article]
He calls it a labour of love – it took Payam Rajabi 27 miles and a few hours, & quite a few calories to create for his girlfriend Clare a Valentine’s day present. That was last year, by the way. This year, the corporate folks wanted to turn it into an advertisement. Guy Pumps Out A Valentine — Literally
Sean Penn Acerbic Letter to Fox [Letters of Note]
Sean Penn wanted Fox to lend him a private jet to take him & his family to a screening of The Thin Red Line, in which he had starred. The good corporate folks at Fox declined, earning them this excoriating missive from Penn.
Our ideas of dinosaurs, well for most of us anyways [Article] [Article]
… is based on the work of an exceptionally talented cinematographer by the name of Steven Spielberg. Robert Krulwich of NPR discovers a whole different world of dinosaurs which are documented throughout history and who have been given visual form by a Natural History Illustrator and Paleo-artist by name Julius T. Csotonyi, PhD, of Edmonton, Canada.